


The days that are no more

by Petra



Category: Ashes to Ashes, Life on Mars (UK), due South
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Magical Realism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-13
Updated: 2010-06-13
Packaged: 2017-10-11 18:08:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/115365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Petra/pseuds/Petra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I was accidentally shot by my partner while trying to catch a train and, for reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture, I have found myself in London in 1985.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The days that are no more

**Author's Note:**

> All [](http://odditycollector.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**odditycollector**](http://odditycollector.dreamwidth.org/)'s fault. Pre-read by her & by [](http://d-generate-girl.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**d_generate_girl**](http://d-generate-girl.dreamwidth.org/). This story does not explain anything about the universe in which it is set, and it does not spoil anything for Ashes to Ashes except in the sense of which characters are present or absent. That said, the story functions by the same narrative laws as Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes, and may lead to a better understanding of the mythos that constitutes much of those series' main mysteries. / Spoilers for the end of due South season 1.

  
"My name is Constable Benton Fraser, RCMP. I was accidentally shot by my partner while trying to catch a train and, for reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture, I have found myself in London in 1985. Considering certain other paranormal experiences I have had in the past, this seems improbable, but not impossible. Whatever has brought me here, I hope to find the key that allows me to return home soon."

Fraser hid the notebook in the back of his bookshelf, reasoning that while it would not be beyond Detective Chief Inspector Hunt to search his flat for no particular reason, he would be more likely to look in places that did not involve literature. The man appeared to have little formal education, though his street-smarts were admirably well-developed. He was unpleasant, often boorish, but his people appeared to respect him.

According to what Fraser had been told, Hunt had begun an inquiry into the death of a woman named Celine Dion--a Canadian, though certainly not the woman of the same name with whom Fraser was regrettably familiar in his own time--and had been promised a representative of the RCMP to assist him. That representative was Fraser.

Precisely what Ms. Dion's plight had to do with Victoria Metcalf or anyone else was beyond Fraser, who was certain that he should be in hospital in Chicago, that Ray Vecchio visited him daily and prayed in half-forgotten Latin for him to wake up, and that there was no reason, spiritual or bureaucratic, why any policeman of the Metropolitan force would allow Diefenbaker into his Aston Martin.

DCI Hunt had similar feelings on the matter the first time Dief attempted to claim his normal territory in the backseat. "Tell your mangy mutt he can cool his goolies on the curb till we get back."

Though this was addressed to Fraser, Dief caught the gist and responded in a similar style, expressing his desire for Fraser to be the one piloting the vehicle and the DCI to be abandoned.

"Diefenbaker, it is his car," Fraser told him sharply. "You can't expect courtesy where you haven't extended it yourself."

"No dogs in the car," Hunt said, and swung into the low driver's seat, slamming his door as emphasis.

"He's a wolf," Dief and Fraser explained, more or less in unison.

"No wolves on my patch," Hunt said. "Banned under some wild animal code or other, I'm sure."

Fraser frowned at Dief, then sighed. "He is a trained law enforcement wolf, though I do not have the paperwork to show you at hand. Please allow him to accompany us. His skills are exemplary and may be of some use to us in tracking Ms. Dion's attacker, whomever that may be."

"Whom-bloody-ever it is, get in the damn car, Moose."

Fraser rubbed his eyebrow and opened his mouth to object to the nickname, which was further off base than any of the ones he had been gifted with during his bouts with schooling. The only mercy was that he hadn't been dubbed "Dudley," but then he wasn't certain that that character had been invented at this point in history. Hunt interrupted him with, "And bring the cur."

It was a necessary, if insufficient, compromise. Fraser opened the door for Dief, then got in himself.

"What does a trained law enforcement wolf do in the northernmost regions of Her Royal Majesty's realm?" Hunt asked.

Fraser looked out at the streets of London, hoping to see familiar landmarks. Instead, he saw a terrifying blur, half the speed of the vehicle and half something that could not be blamed on Hunt's driving, no matter how erratic. He fell silent, trying to make sense of it, until Diefenbaker stuck his nose in Fraser's ear, bringing him wetly back to the subject at hand. "He assists in arrests," he said. "And he is excellent for short-range pursuits. He is also skilled in discerning the precise species of a given flower, though I fear those skills will suffer now that he is not in the same botanical zone as the native vegetation to which he is accustomed."

Hunt sniffed. "Nought to do in the winter but learn how to talk, is there?"

It was not one of the pursuits that people generally named in mocking the long Arctic nights. "It's one of the possibilities," Fraser said, aware that while he was leaving himself wide open for a classic form of taunt, that jape might also bring Hunt to see him as slightly more human and thereby enable their professional relationship.

"Up north--in Manchester--we mostly just fuck," Hunt said, and gave him one of the manly, knowing smiles that so often accompanied such humor.

Fraser said, "Ah," and went back to looking out the window.

In the blur of motion, he thought he saw a caribou. And his father. And Victoria, looking so, so sad and beautiful.

Fraser closed his eyes just as the Aston Martin swung and slid to a halt. "You sleeping, Moose?" Hunt asked, and thumped him familiarly on the shoulder. "We've got one of your countrymen to chat up, so get going."

The informant's name was Robertson Davies, also a Canadian--though not that one--and he came along willingly, though he burst into tears in the interview room. "Ruddy poof," Hunt said under his breath.

Fraser offered Davies tissues. "Take your time, Mr. Davies," he said. "Remember, the slightest detail could lead us to Ms. Dion's fate."

"I love her so much," Davies said. "Loved--oh, God, I can't believe it--"

"When did you last see her?" Hunt asked, sounding bored.

That brought on another flood of tears, then another.

Eventually, Davies calmed down enough to tell them how he'd met Ms. Dion, how he'd fallen for her, and how she'd robbed him blind of twenty thousand pounds--but he still loved her.

"Thank you," Hunt said eventually, when Davies had gone back to sniffling into a handful of tissue. "Excuse us a moment," he said, and gave Fraser a significant look.

They conferred in Hunt's office, a glassed-in cubicle past a sea of desks and hard-working police officers. There were commercial pinups of mostly naked women on the bulletin board, along with a few anonymous snapshots: a dark-haired man and woman on their wedding day, both beaming at the camera; a red-haired woman sleeping on a zebra-striped sofa, her asymmetrical shirt low over one shoulder; a curly-haired man and one with highlighted hair working side by side at a desk in the office outside Hunt's; a dark-haired young woman smiling at the man with highlights; a pale, blond-haired man holding up a lumpy bag and giving the camera a vindicated look.

None of the people in the snapshots were in the CID office, or had been since Fraser arrived the day before. Perhaps they were Hunt's family, though none of them looked like him.

"Give us your thoughts on this Davies, then," Hunt said.

Fraser took out his notepad and scanned it, though he'd already come to some conclusions. "He's responsible for her death, but not directly. He blames himself, and with some reason, though convincing him to admit to that will not be easy."

Hunt's perpetual scowl deepened. "Based on what?"

"He wants to confess, or he would have asked for an attorney. On a more specific level, he aroused my suspicions with the eye contact he made and failed to make, the latter instances hidden inexpertly by his professed, and overdramatic, grief." Fraser tapped a note about the fifth time Davies had burst into tears. "He may very well love her, but it is not the kind of love that precludes his having harmed her."

"Good. That's what my gut says," Hunt thumped the large expanse in question.

"I'm not thinking with my 'gut.'" Fraser put quote marks around the word with his fingers.

Hunt groaned. "Don't do that. Makes me think of--never mind. Just bloody don't."

"My apologies."

"So what are you thinking with? Not your todger, in those pants."

Fraser winced and rubbed his eyebrow with his thumb. "My brain, or whatever passes for it in this instance. His body language was complicated, half-deception, but it was quite familiar." He could not bring himself to elucidate why nor to explain that Davies had reminded him of no one and nothing as much as Victoria. Love, and hate, all twisted together, neither canceling the other but rather building on it until fury grew into murderous rage.

Fraser closed his eyes for a moment; his father was there, giving him a double thumbs-up with heavy gloves.

It was almost entirely impossible that anyone in this time and place could be singing, "A land so wide and savage." It must have been an auditory hallucination created to garnish the rest of this improbable place.

Hunt poured something alcoholic into a glass and offered it to Fraser, who shook his head. "What? You did good work in there, Moose. Have you out of my hair in no time at this rate, once we find some evidence to support my instincts and your brains."

"Oh?" Fraser did not take the glass even with this persuasion. He was thinking of pomegranates and fairy banquets. "Where will I go once we're done?"

Hunt shrugged. "Where do good little Mounties go when they've finished their work? I'm for the pub, but if you don't fancy a pint, I won't drag you along."

While a pub might be an interesting place to observe the local culture, it didn't appeal to Fraser. "Thank you. I suppose I'll return to Headquarters, then." He had no idea where that might be, but surely someone in the building would be able to assist him.

"Could do." Hunt gave him a wry look that was nearly a smile. "I could use someone competent round the department, but I don't want wolf fur all over my damn car."

Fraser looked through the glass wall to where one of the female constables was feeding Diefenbaker chips. "I would find it difficult to part with Diefenbaker," he said, taking the compliment with a nod.

Hunt sucked his teeth and knocked back his liquor. "Waste of a damn fine officer, freezing your tackle off all the time. Well. Let's get back to Mr. Davies, and see if we can't tie up all the loose ends by beer-o'clock."

There was no question of which of them was going to play Good Cop, especially not when Hunt swaggered into the interview room and said, "We know you done it, sonny-jim."

Davies spluttered and wept his way through a tearful denial, looking to Fraser for support. "I loved her so much. You have to believe me."

"I do," Fraser said, and handed him another tissue.

Davies took his hand as well, making Hunt scoff. "I would never have done anything to her. Never."

"Except--?" Fraser added, as gently as he could. Davies's desperation made his flesh crawl.

"She wanted to leave me." Davies wiped at his eyes with his free hand. "She told me she was going. After everything I've given her. That--that bitch."

There was another emotion there for a moment, another instant in which Fraser would have sworn that he could see Victoria instead of Davies. "What happened?"

The story came out of him in fits and starts, still interrupted as often as not by tears: she'd stolen from him, he'd let her, she'd cheated on him, he'd let her, she'd told him she loved him, and he'd loved her with his whole heart.

Then she'd said she was leaving.

He'd drugged her, setting it all up to look as accidental as he possibly could--the wrong herbs, planted in among innocent ones, though they weren't the rat poison in her tea--and held her as she died, stroking her hair.

Through it all, he held onto Fraser's hand as if it would save his innocence.

"Thank you," Fraser said, when it was all in the open.

Davies gave him a long look that, for once, did not dissolve into tears. "I'll never lose her now," he said. "She'll always be mine, just mine."

Fraser shuddered and pulled his hand away. There was a scraping at the door that he would have known in any world. "I have to walk my wolf," he said, and did not wipe his hand on his pants as he stood.

Hunt shook his head and called for an officer to escort Mr. Davies to the cells. "You take it for walks?" he said.

"Frequently, or I face the consequences." Fraser looked at Mr. Davies. "You did the right thing by confessing."

He was crying again, softly this time. "I know. I miss her already."

"That'll happen when you off a bird," Hunt said, and cuffed him on the back of the head when the officer put the handcuffs on Davies.

"Don't," Fraser said sharply. "Why would you strike a prisoner who's already confessed?"

"Didn't give me a chance beforehand, did you?" Hunt tucked his thumbs into his pockets.

Fraser followed Davies out the door. "I should hope not. Violence is no way to solve a crime."

Hunt blew out his breath irritably while Dief gave Fraser a significant look. "Good thing you're out of here, then, Constable. Your rules aren't mine."

"Indeed." Fraser offered Hunt his notebook. "Please keep this safe for me while I take care of Diefenbaker."

Hunt took it and tucked it into a pocket in his jacket. "I'll get started on the report."

"Thank you." Fraser looked at Dief and said, "All right, I'm ready."

Once they were on the streets, Dief seemed to know where he was going, though it wasn't the route Fraser took to the flat he'd been assigned by whatever arcane power looked after such things. They paused at a park for lupine ablutions, and once those were over, Dief seemed to notice something and took off running.

"What is it?" Fraser yelled uselessly after him, and followed as fast as he could, around a series of cabs, pedestrians, and buses.

After many blocks and turns, Diefenbaker stopped in front of a stately building with a Canadian flag flying proudly over the door. Fraser paused to catch his breath and Dief barked at him.

"Give me a moment." Fraser wiped his face. "I can hardly go in there puffing like a racehorse."

Dief twitched his tail in irritation and went up to the door, then barked again. Surely someone inside would come out to protest.

"Stop that," Fraser told him.

Dief barked louder.

"Oh, all right." Fraser wiped his face again, certain that he was as red as his uniform, and went up to the front door.

Inside, where there should have been a foyer, was a hospital room. Ray Vecchio sat in an uncomfortable looking chair, frowning.

Fraser opened the door.

Fraser opened his eyes.


End file.
